This site has gone through some serious abuse recently. For starters, it hosted Five Songs for almost a year, swamping any of the game talk. Then, I blew it up while transitioning to different hosting. Well, it's back, and now it's just exclusively gaming stuff again. So, hello! I'm going

This site has gone through some serious abuse recently. For starters, it hosted Five Songs for almost a year, swamping any of the game talk. Then, I blew it up while transitioning to different hosting. Well, it's back, and now it's just exclusively gaming stuff again. So, hello! I'm going to be writing articles on a new game I've been tinkering with, a partnership card game inspired by ancient battles.

In addition to these games, I've been helping Grant Rodiek out with his designs, and just try and stay busy with games.

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I was asked by a publisher I'm working with for Foxes what my vision for the game is. And I think that's a good question. A game without a vision will drift, and it will wander, and it will be difficult to develop into a great game. This blog is

I was asked by a publisher I'm working with for Foxes what my vision for the game is. And I think that's a good question. A game without a vision will drift, and it will wander, and it will be difficult to develop into a great game. This blog is an attempt to answer that question, and hopefully is something I'll refer back to as we continue to develop the game. Some parts of this will be familiar to anybody that has kept up with my writing on the game, but having it all here in one place will hopefully be interesting.

Foxes had its origins in the early days of Hocus. At the time, Grant and I were thinking that we could possibly do a suite of games in the same box. We thought, OK, we're going to have this deck and these tokens, what about variations on the theme? What about other classic card games with spells? I decided to try Cribbage with spells, and Grant was looking at Blackjack with spells. The product vision for Hocus moved, as that game became stronger and we felt like more stuff in the package might just muddle the intent, but I didn't want to let Foxes go. I've always loved Cribbage, it was the first serious card game that I learned to play well, and there are precious few games that start with it as a base.

The first couple versions of Foxes (then known as Wiccage) hewed pretty close to a Cribbage formula, but as I tortured my friends with it, it became apparent that really, it was just worse than Cribbage. That realization was a little disheartening, but I tried to rally by sitting down to read about some classic card games. It's a good practice for me when I'm stuck for inspiration. Two things really struck me. One, I was reminded how many games out there used smaller decks than the standard poker deck. Outside of Euchre and (maybe) Pinochle, American players seem to encounter very few games that are played with smaller decks. But if I was going to design a two-player game, a smaller deck would present players with different possibilities, and might give me some interesting design problems.

Second, I was struck by Écarté among a few other games, as being two-player trick-taking games. It's a category that's virtually unknown in the US, outside of a brief heyday for Bridgette (which made the Games Magazine Hall of Fame), but it's a category I've personally wished was more common. Trick-taking games have been a part of my life for a long time. I met my wife Megan playing bridge, but of course, that requires four players. I used to have lunch with my friend H.P. (a fellow bridge player) in high school all the time and we would try and cook up two-player trick-taking games. It's an itch I felt needed scratching, and once I combined those ideas of trimming my deck and pivoting towards trick-taking, things started taking shape.

From there, the game was really driven by a few impulses. One, I wanted the deck to be interesting. One of the things I love about folk games, particularly European ones, are the bits of character you see in how the deck operates. Special rules for Jacks, strange orderings, quirks and exceptions that add a ton of character to the game. I wanted to combine that with a modern sensibility to permit such character and texture in the deck but without the memorization that's required. That was the imptetus for the odd card powers: with my own deck, I could print the rules right on the card, but allow for the cards to be unique. But, I didn't want them to come off like event cards or collectible card game cards. I wanted the powers to be inherent to the rank, and to feel like they're natural. I also wanted to play with some surprising consequences for the ranks: that's where the top rank forcing plays, the 9s being cross-suit, the 1s stealing the lead, and the other things in the deck came from. I wanted to make sure that the deck held some surprises, with consequences for the way people approach playing.

Second, I wanted the game to appeal to serious fans of classic card games. To a certain extent, I've known from the beginning that this was a niche product. It's meant to fulfill a need that I've always felt, and I wanted to make sure that it would be interesting even to relatively serious card players. Open minded Bridge players, say. That's not to say I'm uninterested in accessibility, of course, and I feel like the presentation can make a big difference in the approchability of the game. But I want the game to be one that is worthy of serious play. I want it to be a game that provides a rich, challenging experience to players who invest their time in it. I want it to be a game that doesn't feel like a compromise, that doesn't feel like a cut-down card game, but instead is fully satisfying. I would love for players to feel like they can truly become expert in the game.

Third, I've been trying to keep my mind focused on things which add interest to the game without necessarily complication. Again, that comes from the impulse to make a game like classic card games. Those games are successful because relatively simple rules interact in interesting ways to challenge players. It's why I eventually dumped all the last vestiges of the old spell casting from the original inspiration in favor of fixed abilities on the cards. It's why I've wanted the ability to swap what is trump, to provide a lot of texture to the card play and the opportunity for well-timed plays. It's why I've tried to focus on tools for the player who is behind to regain control, but in ways that feel natural and not cheap.

In the end, what I'm inspired here is a category of games, rather than a specific theme or mechanism. I'd like this game to be a love letter to traditional trick-taking, and a revelation of a type of play that most people wouldn't consider for this category of games. I want it to simultaneously feel modern but classic. I want this to be the game that 15-year-old Josh would have played in the lunch room with his friend, when they didn't share a lunch with any of their usual card game crowd. I want this to be the game that I could have played on train seatback trays across Europe when I was bumming around with a friend, or on a vacation with Megan. I want this to be a game that I always have with me because it's compact but always satisfying. I want players to play it and feel recognition at the familiar elements, but to also see new and surprising things.

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As I mentioned last time, I'm experimenting with a pretty big change for Foxes (formerly Wiccage). The idea here is to eliminate the Draft card to make game play smoother and faster. There are some other changes I'd like to try which follow on from that idea. The short thing

As I mentioned last time, I'm experimenting with a pretty big change for Foxes (formerly Wiccage). The idea here is to eliminate the Draft card to make game play smoother and faster. There are some other changes I'd like to try which follow on from that idea. The short thing is that there's now a new rules document with the new changes, along with a new set of cards. If you'd like to try it out, let me know how it goes. The changes, along with their rationale, follow:

No more card drafting! This is, by far, the biggest change. This was suggested by a partner I'm talking with, and he's already tested this a fair bit and likes the change. The idea here is to simiplify the game a little bit, while trying to retain the tactical interest. This is the change I'm going to examine most carefully. If it works out and the game still retains the richness I want, it's a big win for the playability of the game.

A new rank! One thing about the old arrangement of cards is that I wanted the top card of the suit to have the forced play ability, but it was causing me trouble with the "all odd ranks have special powers" thing. Adding another rank with the old scheme doesn't work, because then you end up with an odd number of cards. Adding two ranks doesn't help, because then your top rank is even again. And on it goes. But, with the new scheme of not dealing the whole deck, I can add an 11 rank, and move the former 10 ability up. As a bonus, this gives a little separation between the 11s and 9s, which means the off-suit top ranked cards are a little more powerful, and not just for pulling out 9s.

Some changes to scoring! Under the new scheme, you aren't guaranteed to have all 7s played, so the majority scoring for them no longer works. But that's OK, I've long been considering having them each worth a point. I also moved the two trick scoring things up to two points, which helps balance them against the 7s and the goals a bit better.

New Goals! Because you're now holding a larger hand at the beginning of the game, the Goals needed be tougher. I also made a change I've long considered, which is giving the even cards a purpose - there are now goals keying off them specifically. The goals are also worth fewer points compared to the end-Round scoring.

Re-deals! In order to give people a little bit more of a decision on re-deals, and because they're more of a hassle than they were before, they're limited to once per-game now, per-player.

That's it for now. Please take a look and if you give it a try, I'd love to hear from you.

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Some more news on the game formerly known as Wiccage! For starters, I'm going to rename it: leading contenders are "The Fox, The Witch, and the Mirror" or "Foxes in the Forest". I'd like to really lean into the idea of a fairy tale setting for

Some more news on the game formerly known as Wiccage! For starters, I'm going to rename it: leading contenders are "The Fox, The Witch, and the Mirror" or "Foxes in the Forest". I'd like to really lean into the idea of a fairy tale setting for the game, and these names really seem to suit the game. I'm going to leave the tag here for now.

Second big thing is that I'm working with somebody who has suggested a variant. If you've tried the game, I'd love to get your opinion on which set of rules you prefer. The new rules are modified as follows:

When dealing, deal 12 cards to each player. Ignore all references to Draft cards in the rules. Place the extra 6 cards to the side, we're calling that the Vault for now.

A few of the cards need small changes:

The 1s, ignore the reference to draft order.

3s can now switch Trump with any card from your hand, not the draft cards.

5s now work totally differently: Look at any two cards in the Vault, and you may exchange one card from your hand with one of them.

The scoring is largely unchanged, but if there's a tie for tricks or 7s, that point isn't awarded.

This is mainly to test if this direction is fruitful. There are changes that I might want to do if this seems like a good idea, such as modifying the number of cards set aside, updating scoring, fiddling with some of the powers, etc, but I'd like to get people's impressions of this basic idea versus the drafting one.

If you try this out, let me know!

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I've been working behind the scenes on Wiccage, and have made some simplifications based on some playtesting feedback. One thing that's gone is a bit of a fussy rule about scoring a point when a trick had two Witches on it. I liked the rule in the abstract, but it

I've been working behind the scenes on Wiccage, and have made some simplifications based on some playtesting feedback. One thing that's gone is a bit of a fussy rule about scoring a point when a trick had two Witches on it. I liked the rule in the abstract, but it had some issues. First, it was very rare that it happened. And worse, when it did happen, it was largely just luck, and not from any particular good planning. Second, the rule had presentation issues. Either it cluttered up the text on the Witch cards with a rarely used rule, or it would be in the rules where nobody would remember it (because it's rare). Basically, the rule wasn't pulling its weight, and it had to go.

I also simplified the deck by renaming the Witch cards to just being 10s. They'll still be illustrated with witches, they'll still be clearly the face cards of each suit, but this simplifies rules expressions across a lot of places. In particular, I had to keep mentioning in places that the Witch was the highest ranked card of each suit. And that's just a waste of time. So, 10s they are.

But the biggest change was an update to the goal subsystem. Previously, each hand had a goal card dealt out from a separate deck. It felt a little bolted on. I liked the concept, and the balancing of trying to get a scoring combination in your hand while also preserving the viability of your hand as a play hand was great. But, there wasn't really enough variety in the goals, and I didn't want to increase the size of card count just to add some more goal cards. I also was missing a previous iteration's ability to change the goal, and wanted to find a way to get that back in.

After thinking about it, I realized I could put the goals on the cards themselves. After all, we're dealing a trump card, it could easily pull double duty and could express a goal. Now, we've got a nice property: there are basically 28 combinations of goal/trump suit that can happen (the 9s are all identical), meaning each trump card you pull is kind of a different game. It's a fun property. It also enabled me to increase the goal count to 10 without adding to the component count. Finally, it also added goal switching back, since there is a spell to switch the trump card. That spell was a bit too specialized, so this gives it more opportunities to be useful.

I do think I'm going to change the name. The game has drifted from Cribbage a fair bit, people don't seem to get the name, and I think the art is going to go in a more fairy tale direction. I'd love suggestions.

All in all, I'm happy with the changes. I'd like to find more testers for the game. If you'd like to help the rules are here and the cards are here. It's now even easier to build: 30 cards and a couple reference cards. I'd love to hear any feedback!

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With Hocus off to the printer, I now have more time to devote to other projects. Grant and I are working on a couple projects together, including Landfall (which we're keeping a bit under wraps) and something we're calling Cow Tools, which is further off. But I have some time

With Hocus off to the printer, I now have more time to devote to other projects. Grant and I are working on a couple projects together, including Landfall (which we're keeping a bit under wraps) and something we're calling Cow Tools, which is further off. But I have some time now to devote attention to some of my solo designs, and the one I'd most like to concentrate on right now is Wiccage.

If you'd like to try a two-player trick-taking game that has bits of Cribbage, elements of Whist-style games, some shades of Piquet and Bezique, and its own unique character, I'd love to hear what you have to say. The rules are available for anybody to comment, and the straightforward card file (only 40 cards!) is a PDF available here. I think it's a pretty unique game, and I'd love to find out your take. It's not a finished design, but I think it's already pretty fun, and I think with some active playtesters, I could finish it fairly quickly. The best place to leave feedback is either to send me an email or drop a comment in the Google doc. Thanks for looking!

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It's been almost a year since I last looked at Wiccage, but during some daydreaming recently, I suddenly saw a path forward. One of the problems of the game was that the spell system was both important to the game, and a distraction. You found yourself managing mana, but many

It's been almost a year since I last looked at Wiccage, but during some daydreaming recently, I suddenly saw a path forward. One of the problems of the game was that the spell system was both important to the game, and a distraction. You found yourself managing mana, but many of the plays were trivial. It wasn't really doing the right thing in the game, but it was still there, taking up space. The spells also allowed for some kind of cheap behavior, to avoid having to play the cards you were dealt/drafted. Something needed to be done.

Another problem was a little more subtle, but once a player started getting ahead, they could draft cards and just keep snowballing. It was a bummer to be on the wrong side of that, and just sit there getting hammered. The spells were intended to help out with breaking that cycle, but they were doing a poor job of it, so the runaway leader problem was still present.

Another issue was that the deck, while I liked the number of suits and the size of the deck, needed some more going on. The special powers of the Queens/Witches were fun, but the rest of the deck was just a stripped poker deck. It seemed like a missed opportunity.

Finally, the scoring system just didn't work. I greatly admire Roma, and Roma's scoring system, but without the points loss that Roma has, it just didn't make sense. The rules weight of the scoring subsystem was too much, and it just was too complicated. This, at least, was an easy problem to fix - just go to keeping score normally.

As for the rest, the idea was sparked by a playtester mentioning that maybe spells should be a lot more limited. Well, what if that is the angle? Then I thought, what if casting a spell was triggered by playing a particular card from the deck? That would limit it to three spells a hand, which seemed like enough to be important, but not enough to steal focus. But if I were going to put stuff on the cards, maybe I could put more things.

In the end, I made all of the odd-ranked cards special in some way. It gives players more tools to control the flow of the game, gives more texture to the deck, and it simplifies the spells while also making them more important. Now, you have to think about if you want to use one of your precious special cards. Is it the right time?

After trying this version out several times, I think there's a game here. It's a long ways from done, but it's entertaining already, and much improved over the last version. Dumping two entire subsystems (Runes and Mana) makes for a sleeker game, and there's more room for skillful play. If you'd like to look at the rules, you can check them out here and even comment. And you can download the print-and-play of the cards here. It's a pretty easy build, just forty cards in total. Take a look!

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A discussion with Grant Rodiek today led quickly to traditional style card games, which pretty quickly led to me geeking out about the Mystery Rummy series by Mike Fitzgerald. As I wait for the Kickstarter for Escape from Alcatraz to ship, I thought I'd share where my brain went on

A discussion with Grant Rodiek today led quickly to traditional style card games, which pretty quickly led to me geeking out about the Mystery Rummy series by Mike Fitzgerald. As I wait for the Kickstarter for Escape from Alcatraz to ship, I thought I'd share where my brain went on the previous games. Specifically, to music. I'm almost as big of a music nerd as I am a games nerd, so this sort of thing was probably inevitable on this blog. So, prompted by Grant, here's what soundtracks you could use for the first four Mystery Rummies:

Mystery Rummy #1: Jack the Ripper. Still probably the best of the series, this is a tense, tight game with a dark, dark theme. I initially thought death metal, but after thinking about it while making dinner, decided that's not quite right. You want more menace, more atmosphere. The streets of London, choked with despair, poverty, terror. You want black metal. Yes. That's the stuff. How about Altar of Plagues's brilliant swan song, Teethed Glory and Injury? Perhaps the frigid, distant, howling peril of Emperor's In The Nightside Eclipse?

Mystery Rummy #2: Murders in the Rue Morgue. This is a much more mannered theme, of deduction, not of terror and blood. Sure, it's still a murder mystery, but it's not the same kind of visceral thing that #1 is. Something sinuous, twisting, even puzzling might work here. Part of me thinks something mathy, like Don Caballero (For Respect, maybe), Burning Airlines (Mission: Control!), or Polvo (Exploded Drawing) is the thing here. But you could also go with a really literate rap album here, something with a winding lyrical approach. Say, Blackalicious - probably Blazing Arrow. That's a reach, but it might work.

Mystery Rummy #3: Jekyll & Hyde. A two-faced game like this requires a two-faced sort of music. A kind of schizophrenia is really what we're looking for, the sort of thing that leaves you starting at its starts and turns. I sort of want to say Naked City (Torture Garden), but that's kind of cruel. Also, really, that's only Mr. Hyde, not Dr. Jekyll. Plus, it would be kinda hard to play a game to that racket. Perhaps Boris, with their doom laden drone and garage rock collisions, perhaps Akuma No Uta. Finally, you could spin some drum and bass or something similarly glitchy. Say some classic Squarepusher (Music is Rotted One Note) or Prefuse 73 (Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives).

Mystery Rummy #4: Al Capone. I feel like we need some sophistication here. We've had blistering blast beats and screeching, twisty guitar lines, and glitchy, twitchy stuff. A more straightforward approach is called for here, something smoother. Jazz, obviously, is the ticket. That game's era isn't my wheelhouse for music, but hey, whatever, I'll just ignore that I'm picking stuff from totally the wrong decade. You can never go wrong with Coltrane (Blue Train). Perhaps even some really jazzy ska, maybe The Skatalites (Foundation Ska is the best collection around) or something from the third wave, like The Articles (Flip F'Real - $.15!).

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House of Slack Games is a way for me to participate more fully in the hobby I love. Hobby games have been a part of my life ever since I was given a copy of the Holmes edition of Dungeons & Dragons more than thirty years ago. I've never stopped

House of Slack Games is a way for me to participate more fully in the hobby I love. Hobby games have been a part of my life ever since I was given a copy of the Holmes edition of Dungeons & Dragons more than thirty years ago. I've never stopped loving tabletop games, and that love includes a desire to create them. I'll post my thoughts about games here, and talk about my efforts to make great games. I hope that one day, everybody reading this has a chance to try them.

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A Foresight deck is a unique deck of poker cards with suits on the back. The number of suits on the back depends on the strength of the card:

Although it's been a while since I've written anything here, I've nevertheless been busy with gaming. Work has continued on Hocus Poker, where Grant and I have shifted our energies to what we're calling 3.0, a game that is played with only cards. That's consumed some of my time,

Although it's been a while since I've written anything here, I've nevertheless been busy with gaming. Work has continued on Hocus Poker, where Grant and I have shifted our energies to what we're calling 3.0, a game that is played with only cards. That's consumed some of my time, as well as the summer eating up a lot of free time. But of more consequence is that I've buckled down to try and move to the next stage of things with Killing Monsters and Taking Their Stuff.

The game has been sitting at stage 4, first stage prototype (going off my stages of game development post), where I've tinkered with things enough to recognize that there's a game there, but it's not really a game I could show to other people. What became apparent in my tinkering is where the focus of the design should be, which is helpful. My small scale tests showed that most of the interesting decisions in the game came from managing the risk/reward of spending dice for abilities. It's a game about constantly dealing with probabilities, about judging the right time to fire off your limited supply of powers, and deciding when you can afford to take a big risk.

Having that focus helped me a lot with moving to the next stage, having a game I could put before my local gaming group to see what they think. What excites me about the game is that there's actually an unusual property to it: while the game has a lot of randomness due to the huge number of dice involved, the game play presents more like a series of puzzles with the player having a wide variety of tools to bend probabilities in their favor. It looks like a dice-fest, and it still has a bit of that in its soul, but it's also a thinky game with a series of situations to crack.

What the game needs, though, is content. There needs to be enough variety in the game that the scenarios the game pops up are continually novel and interesting. My basic setup, of a single character and a few monsters, was fine as far as it went, but it wouldn't support multiple players and certainly wouldn't support long term play. But was there enough design space here? Could I make a collection of characters, skills, and monsters here that felt different and fun to play given the constraints of manipulating a bunch of D6s?

To find out, I set off to try and knock out a bunch of content. I thought about stopping once I had a subset of my planned content, but I decided that I needed to be able to create a full set of content if this was going to be a viable game. I didn't know if there was going to be room for that much variety. Was the premise too constrained? Frankly, the process was painful. I stared at my spreadsheet, and just stalled out. I had designer's block. I needed to fight through if this was going to happen.

I tried several things, none of them really successful. Going back and forth between different types of content, setting myself a mandatory two-card-a-night limit, looking at other games - I was just stuck. Finally, I decided to skip mechanics at first, and just name everything. Every card, every ability on the cards, it all got named. That was creative, it was fun, and gave me a direction for filling everything out. After that, things moved reasonably quickly. I eventually ended up creating 12 characters, 12 skill sets, 60 monsters, and two treasure tables. Creating that content, with only a few repeat abilities (which I was able to eliminate during an edit pass), convinced me that there's plenty of design space here.

That work is done, at least for now. I printed things up, cut out some cards, stuck on some sleeves, and at last had a second stage prototype. It was time to get some table time with other folks.

If you're curious about the game, I've made the current rules public. This is still very much an early stage of the game, but I'd love to hear about any thoughts. I've also put the cards up as well, which means that if you're crazy, have a ton of D6s sitting around the house, and have time to burn on a super early prototype, you can play the game at home. I don't really recommend that yet, mind you, but you could try it.

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I was going to write up Bargain Hunter next, but in an effort to prove that I'm not actually obsessed with trick-taking games, I'm going to go in a very different direction instead. It might be harder to get further away from a nice, lightly-themed trick-taker than this game: Ambush!

I was going to write up Bargain Hunter next, but in an effort to prove that I'm not actually obsessed with trick-taking games, I'm going to go in a very different direction instead. It might be harder to get further away from a nice, lightly-themed trick-taker than this game: Ambush!

Ambush! is a World War II boardgame set at the individual soldier level, published by Victory Games in 1983. It was designed by Eric Lee Smith and John Butterfield, both of whom have reached new levels of hobby fame as two of the folks behind Shenandoah Studios, producers of what is still probably the best iPad wargame, Battle of the Bulge. But both have been veteran wargame designers for quite some time, and Ambush! is one of the very best games either has worked on.

Ambush! holds a special place for me, being the first serious wargame I ever played, unless you count Axis & Allies, which I don't, not really. I bought it during a family trip to New York City from the Compleat Strategist (which is amazingly still there) when I was probably roughly 11. I devoured the rule book in the hotel that night and set up a scenario on the floor. My family all thought I was totally bananas, but I was riveted. For a kid who had mostly played RPGs to that point, it opened a new world.

Ambush! is, in some ways, pretty close to an RPG. To start a game, you create a team of 8 soldiers, spendings points on Initiative ratings (and commander ability) and rolling for a bunch of other statistics, such as marksmanship, perception, and morale. You also then equip your soldiers using your equipment points, subject to some fairly restrictive encumbrance rules. They even gain experience and improve as you play through the campaign. After generating your squad, you then select which scenario to play from among the eight in the box. The scenario will give you some special rules, setup instructions, and what your victory conditions are for the scenario.

The game presents like a standard hex and counter wargame, with one major exception: the paragraph booklet and sleeve. Each mission has a set of sheets of numbers that you slide into a sleeve, which has little windows in it. That allows you to slide it back and forth and check certain columns at certain times, which will reveal different paragraph numbers. Those, in turn, will reveal things that happen during the mission. Terrain events, triggered events, random events - they're all driven by this opaque system. And surprises abound in it. I'd love to talk about specifics, but they'd be unfortunate spoilers, and I hope people get to experience them properly.

But it gets even better. Each mission has different "conditions", which change based on events during the mission. A condition might change when particular units show up or are defeated, when the player's soldiers perform certain tasks, or other things that happen on the board. Here's the nifty part of conditions: you change the sheet inside the sleeve. That, in turn, changes all the event triggers and what the reactions of the bad guys are. So if something momentous happens on the board, the game responds to it.

When you combine all that stuff with intelligent rules for how the Germans behave, you get this amazing solo experience. It really at times feels like there's another player you're struggling against, even though the game is purely solo. I've actually had some of my best times with the game playing it as a team game, since you then have a friend there to share your triumphs and failures.

Even with all of the recent interest in cooperative and solo play in board games, I've still never played anything that generates quite as convincing a narrative, that feels more alive, and that can be as gripping as Ambush! If it has a drawback, it's that the missions aren't super replayable. Once you've seen the surprises, you're going to be able to plan for them. But what a ride! And, wait a few years, and it'll all seem fresh again. Plus, there are expansions as well as a Pacific Theater version (Battle Hymn, which is really hard), so there's plenty of gaming available in the system. This game is such a unique experience, everybody with interest in WWII gaming should track down a copy.

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Last time, I wrote about trying to fix the disjointed nature of Wiccage after a poor test. It's worth mentioning, of course, that a poor test like that is an extremely valuable one. I usually learn more from the disasters than I do from the tests where everybody says "

Last time, I wrote about trying to fix the disjointed nature of Wiccage after a poor test. It's worth mentioning, of course, that a poor test like that is an extremely valuable one. I usually learn more from the disasters than I do from the tests where everybody says "it's fine".

I got my friend Jarrett to sit down for a test of this latest version, and things went much better than before. Having the scoring integrated into the card play worked just as intended, giving a coherent feel to the goals of the game. There were certainly avenues for some control over the trick play, which Jarrett demonstrated by throttling me pretty thoroughly on the first hand. Even the new spells worked pretty well, giving the player who was behind some options to try and scramble back on top. I even had an encouraging sign, when I made an egregious mis-play during the game and suffered for it. I wanted Wiccage to be a game of skill, after all, so this was a good thing.

The game, of course, was far from perfect. It was a too easy for a player to get a lock in play, which meant that the loser of tricks was getting a double-whammy: few choices to make for cards and the loss of two Runes. The income for Runes at the end of each hand felt too punitive. The spells needed some work. But, for the first time, I didn't feel like the entire structure needed to be replaced, which was new. Anyway, Jarrett clobbered me pretty good, and I took the findings back to make some more changes.

This time, I didn't have to do a ton of work. I replaced one spell which seemed useless with another one, designed to help a player who was getting beat up by giving them the chance to invert the winner of a trick (for a substantial mana cost). I changed it so that the leading player got 3 Mana each turn with the trailer gaining 2. This softened the positive feedback loop I had been trying to cultivate, but the structure of the game was making that feel unpleasant and claustrophobic instead of dramatic, so it had to go.

Two more changes remained to make. The first was a change to give even the loser of a trick a choice of card. They could either take the leftover face up card or could take a face down card (if any remained). It's a way for a player who is getting beat up to have a possible path to a surprise. The final change was to reduce the bonus for winning the majority of tricks to one Rune, but to give a Rune to the final trick, which adds some drama to the final plays of cards which can be missing.

With these changes, it was time to head back to the table. If they panned out, the game would be ready for some outside testers to start playing around with it.